The cross‐mammalian neurophenomenology of primal emotional affects: From animal feelings to human therapeutics

Abstract

The neural correlates of human emotions are easy to harvest. In contrast, the neural constitution of emotional feelings in humans has resisted systematic scientific analysis. This review summarizes how preclinical affective neuroscience initiatives are making progress in decoding the neural nature of such feelings in animal brains. This has been achieved by studying the rewarding and punishing effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of subcortical emotional networks (labeled SEEING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY systems) that evoke distinct emotion action patterns, as well as rewarding and punishing effects in animals. The implications of this knowledge for development of new psychiatric interventions, especially depression, are discussed. Three new antidepressive therapeutics arising from this work are briefly noted: 1) DBS of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) in humans, 2) reduction of psychological pain that may arise from excessive PANIC arousal, and 3) facilitation of social joy through the study of social play in rats The overall argument is that we may more readily develop new psychiatric interventions through preclinical models if we take animal emotional feelings seriously, as opposed to just behavioral changes, as targets for development of new treatments.

Reconciling cognitive and affective neuroscience perspectives on the brain basis of emotional experience

“…Thus, for AN, a key goal is to decipher the primary nature (the neural constitution) of the primal emotional feelingsdisturbances of which may engender major affective disorders (e.g., post-traumatic anxiety, depression, panic, manic and addictive disorders). If we do share homologous sub-neocortical emotional affects with other mammals, as the data so far strongly indicates, we can make substantive progress by deploying animal models of disordered affective states to understand the human equivalents, yielding new concepts for therapeutics (for recent overviews, see Panksepp, 2016Panksepp, , 2015a.…”

“…Although animals cannot give us verbal self-reports of such states, they can behaviorally 'inform' us whether various evoked brains states are affectively neutral or rewarding or punishing-the latter being our gold standard for monitoring affective shifts explicitly in non-speaking animals (corresponding, if evolutionarily conserved, to homologous emotional feelings in humans). If so, such knowledge provides a clear road to development of new psychiatric interventions Panksepp, 2015aPanksepp, , 2016. Thus the most important empirical issue from our cross-species AN perspective is to have better understandings of how rewarding and punishing emotional states are neurally engendered, especially in animal models where the relevant neural details can be illuminated.…”

“…The relevant circuits in humans are not readily amenable to constitutive neuroscientific research. Abundant clinical implications will arise from a judicious blend of preclinical research that takes core emotional-affective processes of animal brains seriously, combined with correlative evidence emerging from diverse human studies, leading hopefully to novel approaches for better human psychiatric therapeutics (Bouvard et al, 1995;Panksepp and Yovell, 2014;Panksepp, 2016Panksepp, , 2015aSolms, 2015). This said, it needs to be emphasized that higher-order forms of cognitive consciousness (explicit conscious [reflective] awareness of one's affective states) requires abundant higher brain processing, much of which may be unique to anthropoid apes, especially humans (e.g., as best reflected in our symbolic arts, music and literature).…”

“…Naturally, we do not rely on DBS alone; we have also worked extensively with focal lesions and pharmacological probes, in both animals and humans (with clinical predictions), and we have thereby greatly enhanced our understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the basic emotion command systems --and their novel implications for psychiatry (for most recent reviews, see Panksepp and Biven, 2012;Panksepp and Yovell, 2014;Panksepp, 2016Panksepp, , 2015aPanksepp, , 2004.…”

“…Clearly, the role of subcortical animal emotional systems in the modeling and understanding of human psychiatric disorders, and the search for new evidence-based treatments, can be greatly facilitated by research that pursues causal studies of the underlying neurobiologies of the instinctual (sub-neocortical) emotional infrastructure of mammalian brains (Panksepp, 2016(Panksepp, , 2015a(Panksepp, , 2015b. This said, we recognize that a more recent variety of human-specific affective neuroscience has emerged largely from technological advances permitting in vivo functional human brain imaging.…”